WOMAN AIRLIFTED TO HOSPITAL CHARGED WITH TRESPASS, COVID VIOLATIONS
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — An ice rescue yesterday morning was “not a hiker” lost in the woods.
But a prison drug mule, claims the owner of the property where a Keswick woman became entangled in a backwoods “bog” (not Paul’s Lake) — full of Tag Alders — and had to be airlifted to hospital at Bracebridge by a police helicopter.
Carrie-Anne Oke-Cook, who owns and lives on Campbell’s Road, alleges the unidentified 33-year-old was headed for the nearby Beaver Creek prison with a sack full of narcotics.
And that her driver and a passenger took off without sticking around to bail her out.
An OPP spokesperson could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon to verify the claims.
But Oke-Cook says police told her the woman has been charged with trespassing and breaking COVID regulations.
Oke-Cook says a neighbour on the dead-end road who was putting their child on the school bus saw a vehicle with two people “that isn’t a common vehicle on our road.”
“We have a little road with a turnaround — and less than 20 homes — so we know who’s here.”
When news of the accident first broke about 9:30 a.m., Oke-Cook jumped on social media to say: “Lucky Trespasser. Our Crick grabbed her first.”
Later she posted: “Ill intentioned Female trespasser on private property on route to the prison with narcotics to deliver to inmates fell in the swamp … her driver didn’t return to her aid, so she called OPP costing tax payers further by now being treated for hypothermia.”
Oke-Cook says it’s a common occurrence, people driving to the end of the road and making a bee-line through the bush and swamp to the prison.
And it’s gotten worse the past five years.
It’s “more frequent and problematic” she says along Reay Road at the south end of the Muskoka Airport, which is closer to the large federal prison with 717 inmates.
But with more complaints and police patrols along that rural stretch of road attempts to smuggle in drugs are shifting north to her road.
She told MuskokaTODAY.com late yesterday afternoon that the family has “complained about it for years.”
To no real avail.
She understands “police are stretched” and it’s frustrating for them and “the jail guards.”
And frustrating for her — as you can hear in her voice on the phone from the family’s long-time logging/gardening/meat and horse farm.
She said that about 9 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, she and her husband, Mark, were going about their morning “chores” when she noticed the horses in her field were agitated.
No wonder when an OPP helicopter and a plethora of police, firefighters and paramedics descended on the property.
“I believe on Reay Road they’ve struggled significantly. More so recently. And my instincts suggest that given the resistance that these types of people with their intentions are receiving from Reay Road they’re now looking to find another route in.”
Oke-Cook has no doubt the woman had accomplices.
“She didn’t get there by herself. There was no car at the end of the road that police had to get a tow truck for. How was it that no tow truck was dispatched? Oh, wait, she must have fallen from the sky.
“Somebody dropped her off at 8 o’clock this morning.
“Possibly when the runner with a backpack full of narcotics on route to the prison is dropped off, but falls in the crick the driver leaves her for dead that’s why she phoned OPP.
“Because I’m sure that calling the OPP would not have been her first call, right? Do you think? I don’t know.”
Oke-Cook said she spoke with the police after and throughout the day.
“Yeah we’ve been on the phone with the different departments.
“They’re amazing. They’re doing the best they can. We have to figure out as a community how we help them. We can’t expect the police to keep us safe from all this.
“We have to be smart enough to know these activities are happening. And do our due diligence with regards to being alert Neighbourhood Watch communities — talking with neighbours.
“People are sticking together and that always makes me happy. I just want people to have that sense of community and feel they can rely on each other. … And by communicating you can band together and send a clear message.
“Educate, educate, educate.”
Oke-Cook says Beaver Creek’s two facilities are a problem for Muskoka.
“People don’t think of Muskoka as having prisons. It’s incidents like this that make it more obvious.”
“It comes with other significant issues to the community that residents are possibly left to handle on their own, despite the absolute best and fullest efforts by our local law enforcement, fire departments and jail guards. They can only do so much with how little they’re able to move in their constraints.”
She adds: “If the voice or the position of the police, volunteer firefighters and jail guards can be better represented and heard, I think the only way to improve the quality of the community is to ensure all parts of the community — especially those trying to provide care with safety and security — are getting what they need. So they can do the job the best way they know how.
“If you were to ask any of those groups, and the paramedics as well, it’s that they’re not able to do as much as they’d like to. But they’re restricted.”
Oke-Cook says it makes her question “the money that went in to saving that woman and will continue to.”
“The bigger issue,” though, she says, “is that this happens quite often in areas that are near prisons. And police are only able to do so much. And the prisons so much. Why is that?
“And why is it that when they work together” on reports of prison visitors with contraband that the courts say police had no right to stop drivers and dismiss charges.
“So maybe there needs to be bridge where the jail can notify the OPP (better).
“Because the jail can’t catch the person. And now the OPP are being told by prosecutors and the courts they can’t catch the person. How the hell are you supposed to catch the person?”
Beaver Creek is made up of an open minimum security community with no fencing and a larger fenced medium security compound.
But Oke-Cook claims there’s a “ring” of drug smugglers taking advantage of gaps in surveillance made possible by laws protecting prisoners and their privacy rights.
The smuggling is quite sophisticated and “logically planned” she says.
A recent story at another prison cited the use of drones dropping off drugs.
She says “Do you realise security cameras are not everywhere in the (minimum security prison) property, they do not survey everything.”
It’s using these supposed security holes that she claims drug drops and pickups can be made without being witnessed by Correctional Service Canada staff.
“I really hope this one incident can actually help to reframe people’s perspective and shine light more on our neighbours of Reay Road. Give them a voice and opportunity to just communicate how they’re trying their best to cope.”
She wants to “shed some light on what’s happening over there.
“Because that jail, its initial mission and why it was put there has really changed the last five years. And who’s in there has really changed.”
Oke-Cook, who says she has spoken with prison workers and police, adds: “I just wonder if maybe there could be more support for the community that’s struggling.
“That includes our men and women who provide us with most excellent care while first making security and then just the love of neighbours.”
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